Walther Thiede

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Walther Thiede (born December 12, 1931 in Berlin ; † September 6, 2011 in Cologne ) was a German ornithologist .

Studies and professional career

Thiede grew up in Hamburg as a child of a family of pharmacists. His mother was also a pharmacist. Walther Thiede studied pharmacy and got in 1960 his license to practice as a pharmacist . He had carried out intensive studies on the redshank and ringed plover while studying pharmacy . After his license to practice medicine, he studied zoology . In 1964 he received his doctorate in biology with Günther Niethammer in Bonn . The topic of his doctorate was The Spread of the Redshank . From 1964 to 1966 he worked as a pharmacist in Hamburg. From 1966 he worked as a research assistant for a German pharmaceutical company. From 1968 to 1973 he worked and lived continuously in Japan . As early as 1966 he was temporarily deployed in Japan. After returning to Germany, Thiede held various management positions in the pharmaceutical industry.

Author, translator and editor

He wrote hundreds of large and small ornithological articles, four books, and translated three books. His book Birds had 21 editions from 1976 to 2013. The book Water Birds and Beach Birds had 7th editions from 1979 to 2012. In 1980 it also appeared in Great Britain under the title Water and Shore Birds . Raptors and Owls appeared from 1999 to 2012 in 6th editions. In 2007 it was published in Prague under the title Poznáváme dravce a sovy . In 2009 it was published in Belgium in Dutch ( Deltas gids voor roofvogels en uilen ) and French ( Rapaces, chouettes et hiboux ).

In 1982 he translated and edited the book by Stuart Keith and John Gooders which was published under the title BLV-Vogelführer . He translated and edited the 1986 book Birds of Prey from Danish. The fifth edition of this book was published in 2005 and has developed into a standard work for German-speaking ornithologists. The book Tierspuren , which he translated in 2000, was published in its 3rd edition in 2009. The name Walther Thiede also appeared on the title page of these three books that he translated and edited.

Since the 1950s he has been the editorial staff of the monthly magazine Ornithologische Mitteilungen (OM). After the death of the editor Herbert Bruns in 1998, he became editor of this magazine . On the day of his death he was still working to complete Issue 9 of the 2011 OM.

Thiede never worked with a PC or the Internet . So he edited his magazine in the style of the 1970s with pen and typewriter .

Private life

He has lived in Cologne-Lövenich since his return from Japan. Sitting in a wheelchair after an accident since Christmas 2010 , he died on September 6, 2011 in his home. His estate with the huge private library went to the Dr. Walther Thiede Foundation, which he founded and made the sole heir . This ornithological private library was the largest in Germany in private hands.

Thiede was fluent in Japanese, Danish and Swedish, among other languages. He maintained close contacts with ornithologists in Scandinavia , Eastern Europe and East Asia . For years he provided ornithologists east of the Iron Curtain with literature free of charge. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1990, he was involved in the re-establishment or re-establishment of the Association of Saxon Ornithologists (VSO) and the Association of Thuringian Ornithologists (VTO). He became an honorary member of the VSO in 2002. He was buried next to his wife Ulrike in the cemetery in Cologne-Nord (Pallenbergstrasse).

His wife Ulrike (born March 23, 1934, † July 13, 2005) was a zoologist and Japanologist. She studied science and philosophy , and she had also received a doctorate in both fields. According to the catalog of the German National Library, she wrote five books alone and was involved as an author on a further ten books. At the time of her death, Ulrike Thiede was still a lecturer in Japanese Studies at the Bremen University of Economics. From 2004 to 2005 she was chairwoman of the KölnAgenda eV

Ornithological works

Translations and edits

literature

  • Hartmut Meyer: On the death of Dr. Wather Thiede (December 18, 1931 to September 6, 2011). DDA-Aktuell 3/2011, V. In: Die Vogelwelt 2011, 132nd year.
  • Joachim Neumann: In Memoriam: Dr Walther Thiede. Seevögel 2011, 32/3: 95.
  • Manfred Temme: Dr. Walter Thiede (1931-2011). Ornithological Notes 63 (10): 316-317.
  • Uwe Laub, Eberhard Mey & Detlef Laub: The Dr. Walther Thiede Foundation. Ornithological Notes 63 (10): 318-320.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.vso-web.de/artikel/VSO-Ehrenhaben_Dr._Walther_Thiede_verstorben.html
  2. ↑ http://www.koelnagenda.de/news?nr=05072707
  3. ↑ http://www.koelnagenda.de/news?nr=04032705

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Thiede, Walther
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German ornithologist
DATE OF BIRTH December 12, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH September 6, 2011
Place of death Cologne